


A 1922 That Might Have Been

by Chocolatepot



Category: The Last Czars (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe, Domesticity, Gen, Motherhood, Nurses & Nursing, Soviet Union, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:37:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21832267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chocolatepot/pseuds/Chocolatepot
Summary: Where might the Romanovs have ended up if they had not been executed in Ekaterinberg in 1917? (AU)
Relationships: Czar Nikolai II (The Last Czars)/Alix of Hesse | Alexandra Feodorovna (The Last Czars)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	A 1922 That Might Have Been

**Author's Note:**

  * For [etoilecourageuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilecourageuse/gifts).



> Thank you for this prompt! I enjoyed writing the story a great deal. I'm very interested in historical royalty in general, and the Romanovs are one of my more specific interests.

Olga did not much like being a teacher, but after five years of the work, it was at least routine. In the new order, she had been told, all citizens were to contribute to the common good, and the best way that she could contribute was by teaching basic academic subjects to seven-year-olds. Reading was the main thing, and she had to admit that she was good at it – well, she'd had to help her younger siblings, particularly naughty _Shvibsik_ , who was dead set against learning anything.

She did like having her own place and a kind of independence. As a model Soviet citizen who was needed to prove the benevolence of the government, she had better living quarters than many – those who were packed into the old homes of St. Petersburg's high society, a dozen people to a room, she'd heard – and she was proud of how well she kept them on her own. People were always surprised at her neatness, officials and her neighbors, as they expected a princess to be hopeless at housekeeping. Who would have thought, Bolsheviks or proletarians, that the Romanovs really lived like a middle-class English family at Tsarskoe Selo, with a minimal amount of servants and the girls expected to tidy their own rooms?

When the sisters were taken from Siberia and "integrated with the comrades," the others had been afraid, thinking that if they were seen in public they would be torn limb from limb. Olga had talked them into confidence again despite her private misgivings, and despite it all they found a great deal of sympathy from the populace. Apparently, all of those photos and films that the girls had spent their childhoods posing for had been widely disseminated through Russia-that-was, and most people still thought of them as delicate, pretty children in plain white gowns, wanting only for Olga to smile and nod graciously when they exclaimed that they remembered her. But after the first few years, the novelty had worn off and she was scarcely recognizable from the old photos anymore. She was just matronly Olga Nikolaevna, the schoolteacher who patiently taught the children of the factory workers how to hold a pen and sound out the phrases in their books.

***

 _Knazhna_ , the patients called Tatiana, the pretty nurse, among themselves. They made it a great secret, as though it would be dangerous for her if she were found out. Every new inmate was inducted into the knowledge by his wardmates in hushed tones.

"Do you see that nurse? The pretty one, short, with all that dark brown hair?"

"Nurse Romanova?"

"Yes! She is one of those Romanovs. A princess."

A few shrugged in response. What did it matter? There were no princesses anymore in the Soviet Union; she was a young woman like any other, and if she had once lived in a palace with glittering courtiers, well, at least now she was serving a useful purpose like everyone else.

Others found it exciting. A princess in their midst! They kissed her hand, despite her attempts to pull it away, and made a point of bowing when the ward sister's back was turned. When they misjudged their timing, they looked away as she gave the object of their attentions a severe warning. After some time the novelty wore off, and they eventually left.

There was a third group, which was smaller. These were quieter men, usually, who were looking for something. They never addressed her as _Knazhna_ , never kissed her hand or made elaborate obeisances. Instead they looked at her with sad, dark eyes, staring as though she were a gilded icon hung on the wall for worship. Nurse Romanov seemed most troubled by them: she performed her duties for them and left silently, without another glance to see them watching after her.

***

Maria was pregnant again. She knew it in her bones – like the way you could feel it in the pit of your stomach when you were going to start to bleed. This was satisfying, and she gave herself another pinch of sugar in her tea to celebrate.

Vanya would want to celebrate, too. He would probably hold a dinner with the other Party men and their wives. She rubbed her thumb over her wedding ring, spread her fingers out and looked at her hand critically. The ring might need to be stretched this time, if her hand swelled like it had before.

Marushka was playing with her blocks on the floor, arranging them in a pattern that only made sense to her. She had such lovely blonde ringlets – Maria hoped they would stay that color forever, Vanya's color. Little baby words bubbled out of her lips, a song to herself. Maria moved to the crib and smoothed Nadezhda's white gown, which she'd embroidered herself with yellow silk ribbon roses. _Her_ hair was dark and straight, like her own, but Maria thought her almost as pretty as her sister anyway.

***

"My dear, your dress! So daring!"

"It's by Rombova. I must support my countrywomen, you know."

"The Russian designers are so chic, your taste is impeccable. Did the Baron von Denhoff pay for it?"

"Oh, no, I'm not staying with the Denhoffs anymore. His wife would complain about every little thing – do you know, she told me that my manners gave her the impression that I was a factory worker off the streets, rather than a Russian princess? I could only laugh at her."

"How dare she!"

"I suppose I was being a little demon again. I'm worse without my sisters, you know – but then, I'm better than I would be with Alexei. Dear little boy."

"Still, you'll be much better off without her."

"Yes, the Baroness Buxhoevden is a much better hostess. I would rather stay with Sophie – she makes such a pet of me for my mother's sake. Have you heard the rumor about me?"

"I'm not sure …"

"I suppose there are a lot of rumors. Well, word on the streets of Berlin is that I'm not really me – I'm some common-born imposter, and the real Grand Duchess Anastasia was executed by some vicious Bolsheviks in some vicious way. The idea that I could have disguised myself long enough to get out of Russia – excuse me, the Soviet Empire, or whatever it calls itself – is just too incredible."

"That's preposterous."

"Isn't it, though. It's too bad Olga wouldn't come with me to tell them off, but then they'd just call her an imposter as well. Have you got any more champagne? It's heavenly …"

***

The family who lived in the little house at the edge of the collective kept itself to itself, which the rest were content with. The father was heavily bearded and quiet, but he worked with a good will in the fields; he seemed to relish the manual labor. 

His wife was often ill and would stay in bed for days at a time. This provoked resentment at first, but after a few of the local women came to visit her and saw the depth of her misery, reporting back to the others that she truly shouldn't be out on the farm, sympathy went more in her favor. She was clearly far more pious than was allowed, but they turned a blind eye.

Their son was also sometimes ill or injured, but as he grew older he was more careful and hurt himself less. He tried to do his share of work in the fields, the villagers gave him that, but his father stepped in to do the heaviest work for him as much as possible.

Ever since the family was brought to the collective, Soviet officials visited more frequently, unsmiling men who inspected homes and fields. Nobody liked them – they caused a great deal of mental rumbling about unfair standards of labor – but there was, of course, no voiced resentment. Men in clean clothes who watched you break your back in the fields were simply a fact of life.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, now that you've read it, I have to admit: I have a hard time imagining Nikolai and Alix (and probably Alexei) making it out alive even in a best-case scenario. Their symbolic value for the Whites was just too high. So I went with what seemed most plausible to me - allowed to live, strongly rumored/"known" to be dead, living anonymously in some village in Siberia. It was interesting to think about what the sisters might have been assigned to by the state and how they could have been used for propaganda value: look, even the former princesses are now a part of the glorious Soviet enterprise! I couldn't resist having Anastasia end up sort of following the path trod by Franziska Shanzkowska, aka Anna Anderson, though.


End file.
